Dell Inc. usually isn’t the first vendor that comes up when security is discussed, but it boasts a broad arsenal of endpoint protection tools that are widely used in the enterprise. And now the company hopes to win over small- and midsize organizations too with the introduction of a new specialized antivirus that incorporates artificial intelligence technology.

Other security vendors make use of machine learning algorithms as well, since the ability to draw lessons from attack attempts can greatly improve the accuracy of malware detection software over time. But most of those vendors market their products to large organizations and set their prices accordingly, which puts the technology beyond the reach of most SMBs. Dell says its new offering enables small and midsize businesses to come much closer to the level of protection enjoyed by their bigger peers without overstepping their limited IT budgets.

Dell Data Protection | Threat Defense, as the software is called, promises to block 99 percent of malware infections, which handily beats the average 50 percent detection rate of conventional antivirus tools. And security can be tightened even further with its built-in administrative controls. A company’s IT staff are able to automatically prevent suspicious ActiveScripts and PowerShell scripts from running on user machines, while whitelisting applications that are deemed safe but are prone to producing false positives.

When a real malware infection is detected on a user’s device, the offending file can be sent to a complementary cloud service that Dell offers alongside its new antivirus to automate incident response. The managed tool analyzes the threat to identify what weaknesses it exploited in a company’s defenses and provide guidance on how to plug the holes. Dell Data Protection | Threat Defense is set to become generally available in mid-June.

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